1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates in general to a scanner with a simplified document feeding path, and more particularly to a scanner which provides a simplified document feeding path for double-sided scanning of a document.
2. Description of the Related Art
Nowadays, scanners have played an important role in household use as well as in business use. A scanner scans a document and stores the contents of the scanned document as electronic data.
For the purpose of reducing the consumption of paper, users or publishers print or write information on both sides of a sheet of paper, and accordingly many scanners now are equipped with the function of double-sided scanning of a document to capture images of both sides in one single scanning procedure. One of the technologies to achieve double-sided scanning is to install an optical module in a scanner complemented by an intricate paper path and a complicated structure of a conveying mechanism for recirculating the document in the paper path so as to perform double-sided scanning. Another technology is to install two optical modules facing each other in the scanner. When the document is passed between the two optical modules, the two optical modules perform the scanning procedure for the document at the same time.
However, both of the technologies mentioned above have their respective drawbacks. For the first technology, a number of paper sensors may be required to sense the position of the document so that the rollers of the conveying mechanism can deliver the document with a smooth and precise motion, which results in an increase of the production cost of the scanner. Although by using the second technology the conveying mechanism may be structurally simplified, the cost of the scanner is increased as well due to the addition of a second optical module.